Building Technology for the Future

January 2011 – Originally published in GLITR

A spinout of Michigan State University research is growing into new markets at the edge of laser technology, with help from the Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center.

Biophotonic Solutions Inc. has created a totally automated, push-button control module for ultra-fast lasers known as femtosecond lasers. The company is moving beyond selling the technology to other universities and research centers to more practical applications, including eye surgery and medical imaging.

What's so special about femtosecond lasers?

"The key about ultrafast lasers is that not only do they focus the energy like a laser on a small spot, they also focus the energy in time," said BSI founder Marcos Dantus. "With these lasers you can deliver 10 to the 15th power watts of energy in a few millionths of a billionth of a second. Ten to the 15th watts is about the total energy in the entire electrical grid of the United States. You put all that energy in that brief an amount of time, and it basically evaporates all matter — solid, liquid or gas — and it does that in a period of time so fast that there is no thermal energy deposited. There is no melting, no scarring in applications like ophthalmology."

BSI's controls allow far shorter pulses than the current state of the art.

"The technology our company has allows people to use 10 times shorter pulses at least," Dantus said. "The advantage of that is, you can use a 10 times smaller laser, and you are delivering 10 times less energy. In eye surgery, that means it's safer and you get better results."

Using pulses as short as those allowed by BSI technology — four femtoseconds, vs. 500 femtoseconds for conventional lasik surgery — used to require a laser expert on staff. The advantage of BSI's technology is that essentially it's a laser expert in a box, making pulses that short available on an automated basis.

BSI was founded in 2003 and started operations in 2004 with a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the United States Army to research using femtosecond lasers to detect biowarfare agents.

"It worked very well, but the technology was a little bit ahead of its time and it was expensive," Dantus said.

Eventually, Dantus said, the company decided that rather than trying to sell a system that detected gases, the core technology was the device that made faster femtosecond lasers automated — so that was what the company took to market.

BSI licensed the manufacturing of its technology to the world's largest laser maker, Coherent, from 2006 to 2009. "That gave us time to grow and develop our systems and manufacturing capabilities here in Michigan," Dantus said. "We launched our own manufacturing operations in 2009. We have a place in East Lansing, and six employees and a part-timer doing assembly of the optical and electronic parts of the device."

Besides eye surgery, the technology also has applications in medical imaging — shorter laser pulses used to illuminate medical images are far brighter and clearer. They'll also lead to advances like noninvasive biopsies.

"This is not approved for use in the U.S. yet but it is approved in Europe, China and Australia," Dantus said. "Imagine going to the dermatologist, they put a microscope right on a mole and the doctor can tell you exactly how deep it is, what is the pathology, whether it needs to be removed — all without cutting."

And the technology also has applications in the pharmaceutical industry for mass spectrometry, science that allows pharma companies to find biomarkers and study how a drug is metabolized. Dantus said he started working with the SBTDC in 2008 "when I heard about their roadmapping program. This was absolutely critical for our company … The thing is, we have technology that could apply to a whole lot of markets, medicine, dentistry, communications, defense, mass spectrometry, education. When you do this road mapping, you learn what markets you should focus your time and effort on. You have to realize you cannot do everything tomorrow, so you learn what market makes the most sense to go into — and it's not just the largest market, some markets require more investment to penetrate than others. Road mapping takes you through a series of questions, and you get a numerical result that gives you an idea of what path you should take… That was really, really worthwhile."

At the SBTDC, Dantus said, "I met really great people. Since then I have consulted them on business plans and on getting connections with people in Michigan to do a great many different things."

Dantus' plans for BSI in 2011 include its first round of venture capital and launching an entry level system at $24,500 (vs. the current top-of-the-line price of $98,000).

Dantus is also actively launching BSI into the ophthalmology, imaging and mass spectrometry markets, contacting key players.

"We are open to going into licensing agreements, joint ventures or make the instruments direct — whatever makes the most sense," Dantus said.

More at http://biophotonicsolutions.com.

The MI-SBTDC not only assists innovative technology companies like Biophotonic Solutions, but it also serves Michigan’s manufacturers and growing second stage companies, as well as startups and other existing small businesses. To learn about MI-SBTDC services for your business, please visit www.misbtdc.org.

Contact the SBTDC.